unicorns

A then and now of Vermeer’s Little Street. Credit: Rijksmuseum/The Art Newspaper

The original location of Vermeer’s “The Little Street” has been discovered. After a century of debate among scholars as to whether one of the earliest Northern European portraits of a middle class house exterior was real or fictitious, the buildings have been determined to be Trip Gate in Delft. [The Art Newspaper]

Silicon Valley has their over-valuated “unicorn” start-ups, and now Canada has their own name for those $1 billion plus tech companies: narwhals. How the arctic toothed whale embodies our pre-tech bubble burst no one knows—maybe when it all sinks, Canadian start-ups are able to break the ice with their tusk, constant apologizing, and self-deprecating humor. [Quartz]

In related news, a millennial Silicon Valley unicorn founder has let the world know he does not want cars, watches or gadgets: he wants to start collecting art, and has appropriately inspired a Twitter parody account of his potential art collection with quips like “it’s time to #swiperight on the #artworld.” [artnet news]

This confessional listicle from a recently out of work, 25 year independent video store employee is depressing. With the demise of the video store industry, here’s what we’re losing despite the convenience of Netflix: human interaction and a video library not solely shaped by the whims of licensing agreements. [Vox]

Holland Cotter thinks the Martin Wong retrospective survey at the Bronx Museum of the Arts is a must-see. He fondly reminisces about first encountering the “virtuoso realist” in the 1980s when he was briefly a clerk in the Met’s bookstore, and the critical eye he brought to his mystical city paintings. [New York Times]

Artist assistant: “John, BMW’s publicist needs a quote from you for the press release announcing the Art Car commission.” Baldessari: “Is this really necessary right now? I’m in the middle of something.” Assistant: “Cao Fei hasn’t gotten back to them yet.” Baldessari: “I really don’t care, just tell something corny about how it’ll be my ‘fastest artwork yet’.” [Autoblog]

London’s National Portrait Gallery just scored a $4.5 million donation from the Lucian Freud estate containing his letters, sketchbooks and early childhood drawings. [Artforum]

David Bowie has a new music video. There’s a sax solo and bandaged eyes and dancers moving with seizure-like movements and creepy kids. [The Awl]

If you live in Berlin, you really have no excuse to be late ever again if you’re travelling via transit, especially since their transit authority has released a real-time map of their subway system. [Metafilter]

The Met is putting on an exhibition about unicorns to coincide with the 75th anniversary of owning the Unicorn Tapestries. [The Met]

Monkey Farter: A veriositic use of art speak in service of satire. “Here, center stage, the viewer is first confronted with an image that he or she assumes is the monkey farter itself. It is however the first clue to the deceptive and perhaps dangerous game that Will has invited us to play. On closer inspection the object does not so readily give over to the expectations of “monkey” or “monkeyness”….” [Hyperallergic]

Google Glass have begun arriving in the mailboxes of a few hundred “explorers” who pre-ordered the Internet glasses. So far, explorers have begun posting photos documenting the glasses’ meticulous packaging. [The Atlantic Wire]

Andrew Goldstein talks to BOMB Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief Betsy Sussler. “I thought of BOMB as a one-act play, with a catharsis and denouement that would be tied around revelation.” Sussler tells Goldstein in one of seemingly countless quotable moments from the interview. [Artspace]

Calvin Tomkins profiles Jasper Johns, not as an artist but as the executive of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA). In the early 1960s, Johns founded the organization so that his friends could put on performances, and to this day, the foundation continues with a similar model: grants should come from the donation and sale of artworks. Note: Paywall. [The New Yorker]

Disappointingly, Hennessy Youngman’s CVS bangers don’t include K.D. Lang’s “Constant Craving”. Just how thorough is this research!?! That said, we do like that he included “Lady in Red” by Chris de Burgh. [In the Air]